Best of Tourney Quotes, Day I

Now their coach has lost his voice. (By Jonathan Newton - TWP)

The best quotes of Day I at the Verizon Center. Or at least, the best quotes on the transcripts.

"I've had a lot of advice over the last 10 or 12 days. And it almost all is, if you believe -- if you REALLY believe you can win, you can win. And like I've told a couple of people, if I REALLY believed I could beat Tiger Woods, he'd beat me by about 25 shots. Even if I REALLY believed that I could [win]."

Belmont Coach Rick Byrd, on the mindset of a 15 seed facing Duke.

"I think we treat him like a freshman, too, because he's kind of a little kid to me and the seniors. He's actually very cute."

Georgia's Dave Bliss, when asked about Zac Swansey.

"We don't play anybody that's not full strength. As soon as they see us come up, I told one of your radio stations today, we're like Ernest Ainsley, we just heal everybody."

"Once we get out there we're both going to try to win, obviously. It's not like I'm going to tell our guys, 'Go ahead and cut the screen so [Alex] Ruoff can do the three, looks like Bob needs to catch up down there.' It's not going to be like that. We're going to try to beat each other's brains out, obviously. And then afterwards hang out or say hello or do whatever."

Arizona Coach Kevin O'Neill, speaking about his friendship with Huggins.

"When coaches get ready to play a game and you're thinking about tempo and how the game might be played, you and I are old enough to remember this, in 1987 Bob Knight was talking about the UNLV game and he said his assistants are telling him we have to play in the 60s. He said, 'If we play in the 60s, we'll get beat 80 to 60.' You're going to play great defense, I know that. Would you be comfortable playing a little bit higher game with them?"